The Gospel of St. John

Schmidt Number: S-1267

On-line since: 15th January, 2001

Third Lecture

5th March, 1906

What we
have said so far about the Gospel of St. John has taken us
deeply into the essence of Christianity, and has shown us
what profound mystical power lies hidden within this
Christian document. We have seen that it should not be read
like a report of outer events, or an historical account, but
a script engraved by life, so that every sentence re-lived,
transforms something in us.

We have
followed the seven stages of spiritual ascent in the life of
St. John. Today we will add something which goes even deeper.
A few examples will show that I have not forced an arbitrary
meaning on the gospel, but that by means of occult teaching
we are able to understand many things that otherwise would
remain dark and unintelligible. First I will remind you of
the seven stages of initiation which existed at the time of
the birth of Christianity.

In the
last lecture we came to know the Christian initiation, but it
was not Christianity that first made initiation possible. At
all times, ever since there were men as we know them on
earth, it was possible to become an initiate — to
ascend to higher stages of human existence. Through
Christianity all these things became more inward. Since
Christianity has provided us with such documents as the John
Gospel — which only needs to be allowed to work and
live in us — one can achieve much, and rise to
spiritual heights. There were no such documents in
pre-Christian times available. One had to be introduced into
hidden mystery temples, or centres, and according to the
various peoples, the lower stages of initiation differed. In
the higher stages national peculiarities were of no account,
and they were the same for all peoples even in much older
times.

I would
like to describe the seven stages of initiation as they were
practised in the Persian Mithras cult. It was a form of
initiation that was cultivated in the whole of Asia Minor, in
Greece and Rome, and even as far as the Danube basin it was
practised far into the Christian era. For a long time it was
possible to go through these stages even in the hidden cultic
centres and temples in Egypt which were often built into the
solid rock. They were only accessible to those who came to
know them as morally advanced pupils and initiates after
strict tests. The first grade was the “Raven”. As
a raven the neophyte carried the knowledge acquired in the
outer sense world into spiritual life. The idea of the raven
has lingered in myths and sagas. There are the Ravens of
Wotan, the ravens of Elijah, and in the German Barbarossa
saga ravens are the intermediaries between the emperor under
a spell in the mountain and the outer world. In the Mithraic
mysteries “Raven” signified a grade of
initiation.

The
second grade was that of the “Occult One”. This
was the name for someone who had already received some
important occult secrets.

The
third grade was that of the “Fighter”. These were
initiates who felt their higher self to the extent that they
understood sayings such as one finds in the second part of
“Light on the Path”. *[“Stand aside in the
coming battle, and though thou fightest, be not thou the
warrior.” Light on the Path, Mabel Collins,
Theosophical University Press. Pasadena, California, 1971.]
Only an initiate of the third grade can understand such
sayings. This does not mean that the ordinary person cannot
reach a certain comprehension. Everyone has a higher self,
and if one is able to abnegate one's lower self and make it a
servant of the higher self then one can say in a certain
sense: “Though thou fightest thou art not the
fighter”. But it is not until one has reached a
particular stage of initiation that one really knows what
this sentence signifies. What one formerly considered as
higher interests become mere subsidiary interests, mere
servants of the fighter.

The
fourth grade was achieved when complete inner harmony and
calm, equilibrium and strength are gained. This grade was
called that of the “Lion”. Such an initiate had
so developed the occult life in himself that he could
represent the occult not only with words but with deeds.

Meanwhile the consciousness of a person who has passed
through these four stages of initiation extended further and
further. He identified himself with ever larger groupings of
people. All these names have a hidden meaning. For instance,
the expression, “The Occult One”. What is a human
being as we see him in front of us? He is what is in him. As
a Raven an initiate of the first grade — he tries to
overcome what is only in him. Then his interests become
wider. What people around him are, what they feel and what
they will, becomes his own feeling and his own will. The
terms were coined in times when there were still communities
which were kindred enlarged families. How did one regard such
a family? One said they were members of a soul-family tracing
right back to a common ancestral pair — members of a
hidden ego.

An
initiate of the second grade, an “Occult One”,
had so ennobled his ego that it became the ego of his
community; he made their interests his own. The occult entity
of a human community was able to live in him. When the ego of
such a human community became the ego of an individual
initiate then this community became his dwelling place. The
“Fighter” fought for the larger community. In
ancient Palestine one designated as a “Lion”, he
who had raised himself up to encompass the consciousness, the
ego, of a whole tribe. The “lion” of the tribe of
Judah is the term applied to someone who had reached such a
stage of initiation that he bore within himself the ego of
the whole tribe.

The
initiate of the fifth grade had so overcome his personality
that he could take up the folk-soul. The folk-spirit lived in
him. In Persia such an initiate was called a
“Persian”. In Greece one would have called him a
“Grecian”, if it had been the custom. What does
this grade signify? For him everything individual has
vanished and his consciousness has become one with the whole.
This constitutes a higher state of consciousness.

Today it
is different. Because of the splitting up of all communal
groups we meet with quite different stages of initiation. But
at the time of the birth of Christianity it still had a
meaning when one spoke of souls initiated to the fifth grade.
You can verify this in the John Gospel. Take the first
chapter, verse 45:

“Philip findeth Nathanael and saith unto him: We have
found him of whom Moses in the law and the Prophets did
write, Jesus of Nazareth the son of Joseph. And Nathanael
said unto him: Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth?
Philip saith unto him: Come and see. Jesus saw Nathanael
coming to him and saith of him: Behold an Israelite indeed in
whom is no guile!”

Nathanael is here acknowledged as an initiate of the fifth
grade. This means that he had learned to know what for us men
is the essence of life, the Tree of Life. Earlier in life one
tastes of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. One partakes of
the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge the moment one is able to
say “I” to oneself. When the higher, the
spiritual, in man awakens it can happen that God has to
protect man. Jehovah was concerned lest man, after having
eaten of the Tree of Knowledge, should also eat of the Tree
of Life before he was ready for it. The initiate of the fifth
grade learns what relieves this concern and what raises one
beyond all death and all that is transitory. This is the
spiritual element.

How can
the spiritual element become established in man? For someone
who has penetrated more deeply into Theosophy it is something
which flows through the whole world. For him whose vision is
able to penetrate into higher worlds, all that is, to begin
with, a stage of inner development even on higher planes, is
expressed at first on the astral plane as a picture. When a
person has reached the fifth grade of initiation he always
sees a picture on the astral plane, which formerly he had not
seen — the picture of a tree, a finely branched, white
tree. This picture on the astral plane, which is to be taken
as a symbol of the fifth grade of initiation, is called the
Tree of Life. He who had reached this point is said to have
sat under the Tree of Life. Thus Buddha sat under the Bodhi
Tree and Nathanael under the Fig Tree. These are terms for
the picture on the astral plane. What is seen are reflections
of inner — even bodily inner things. The Bodhi Tree is
but the astral mirror image of the human nervous system. He
who through initiation is able to direct his gaze inward,
sees his inner life, even his bodily inner life, projected,
reflected into the outer astral world. So you see what is
intended in this chapter of the John Gospel.

Nathanael is addressed as one who knows. It is implied: We
understand each other. “Jesus said unto him,
‘Before that, Philip called thee, when thou wast under
the fig tree, I saw thee.’” This means, we are
brothers of the fifth grade of initiation. It is a
recognition between initiates. “Nathanael answered and
saith unto him, ‘Rabbi, thou art the Son of God, thou
art the King of Israel.’” You see the recognition
is complete. Jesus answered him, and said that it will become
apparent that he is more than an initiate of the fifth grade.
He said, “Because I said unto thee I saw thee under the
fig tree, thou believest; thou shalt see greater things than
these.”

I would
also like to draw your attention to the conversation with
Nicodemus, which you will find in the third chapter. There we
have the significant words, “Verily, verily I say unto
thee, except a man be born of water and of the spirit, he
cannot enter into the Kingdom of God.” What does it
mean to be born anew and to see the Kingdom of God? It means
to have awakened the higher self, to be born so that the
eternal core of one's being is awakened. What does it mean to
enter the kingdom of heaven? It means to see not only the
reflection of Devachan here on earth as we see it through our
physical eyes, but to see this realm directly itself. He
alone can do this who has not only been born for this
physical world, but is born a second time.

Take
what I have used as a comparison, but one which is more than
a comparison. Take it literally. To be born means to proceed
from an embryo to a stage at which one perceives the outer
world with the senses. If one does not pass through an
embryonic stage one can never be ready to be born. Those who
know this stage also know that ordinary life is an embryonic
stage for the higher life. This leads us deep into the
meaning of ordinary life. It could be quite easy for someone
who directs his gaze towards the spiritual world to become
convinced that there is such a world and that man is a
citizen of it. He could then proceed to disregard the
physical world and to believe that one cannot depart from it
quickly enough, and that one should mortify the flesh, the
sooner to reach the spiritual world. This shows ignorance. It
is as senseless as if one would not allow the human embryo to
mature but would bring it into the world at two months, and
expect it to live there. Likewise for the higher world, one
has to develop to become mature. Such is he who has developed
his higher self. The physical world is the school. He who has
developed his ego here is ready to enter the kingdom of
heaven, which means to be born again. Man has to go through
birth and death ever and again, until he has gained his full
maturity in order to enter the spiritual world itself, so
that he no longer needs physical organs. Thus we have to
realise that everything we do by means of our eyes, ears and
other senses is work done for the higher life.

Certainly, we have, frequently said that man must develop
higher senses, that he must develop the chakrams or holy
wheels, which enable him to enter the spiritual world and see
it. But how does he come to obtain these holy wheels? Through
his work on the physical plane. Here is the place of
preparation. Our work here prepares the organs for a higher
world. As the human being is prepared in the mother's body,
so in the body of the great world mother — where we are
while leading our physical life — is prepared what is
necessary to make it possible for us to see and act in higher
worlds. One is perfectly justified to speak of a higher world
and to value it higher than our lower world, but we should
only use these terms in a technical sense. All worlds are,
basically, equally valid expressions of the highest
principle, in different forms. We should not despise any
world. In this way we learn to relate ourselves rightly
towards both the lower and the higher worlds. This is the
requirement for entering into the third chapter of the John
Gospel.

It must
be understood that Jesus speaks to Nicodemus of a genuine
rebirth, and that, above all, he wishes to remind him that
looked at in this way, the ordinary, everyday life must be
reborn as a higher life and recognised as such. He who reads
this chapter really carefully will see that this is what is
meant.

Many
circles lay it against Theosophy that it teaches
reincarnation — the gradual maturing of humanity
through rebirth and repeated earth lives. It is said that
Christianity knows nothing of this teaching of reincarnation.
But actually in the John Gospel there is a clear indication
that when he spoke intimately with his disciples, Jesus
taught reincarnation. For instance, one can only make sense
of the ninth chapter (the healing on the Sabbath of the man
born blind) if one bases it on the idea of reincarnation. One
must remember that he spoke in the language current at that
time. In Greece it was then usual to speak of the power that
permeates man's innermost being and leads it forward. For the
Greeks and all other peoples of that time, the power that
made man into man and caused him to develop was God. An outer
God, a God in the next world, was unknown in those days.
Therefore one called what lived in man, the God in man. Thus
if one spoke of the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the
God of Jacob, it was the higher self that was meant. One can
only understand the Old Testament if one appreciates this
conception of God. Jesus too speaks of the God living in man
when talking intimately to his disciples: “His
disciples asked him, saying, ‘Master, who did sin, this
man or his parents, that he was born blind?’ Jesus
answered, ‘Neither hath this man sinned nor his
parents, but that the works of God should be made manifest in
him.’”

These
three sentences speak clearly enough. Neither had he sinned
in his physical body, nor had his parents; therefore the
Jewish law that God will visit the sins of the fathers upon
the children unto so and so many generations does not hold
good. But the works of God in man shall be made manifest,
i.e. the self in man that passes through all his
incarnations. These words which Jesus spoke to his disciples
could not be clearer. You know the orthodox explanation.
Think, if someone meant what is supposed to be said here: The
glory of God should be made manifest in a blind person. This
presumes that it was arranged that someone should be blind so
that Jesus could heal him and the glory of God be made
manifest. Can this be reconciled with true Christianity? No.
Christianity would be morally degraded. Interpreted
theosophically, this image carries a truly beautiful and
noble meaning.

It was
always so when Jesus spoke intimately with his disciples.
That it was so, is especially revealed in the scene known as
the transfiguration. It is, however, not in the John Gospel.
We find it in the seventeenth chapter of St. Matthew and in
the ninth chapter of St. Mark. In St. John it is not to be
found. The only reference that could have any relation to it
is the passage in the twelfth chapter, verse 28:
“‘Father glorify thy name.’ Then came there
a voice from heaven saying, ‘I have both glorified it
and will glorify it again.’” And further in verse
31: “‘Now is the judgment of this world. Now
shall the prince of this world be cast out. And I, if I be
lifted up from the earth will draw all men unto me.’
Thus he said, signifying what death he should die. The people
answered him, ‘We have heard out of the law that Christ
abideth for ever, and how sayest thou: the Son of Man must be
lifted up? Who is this Son of Man?’ Then Jesus said
unto them, ‘Yet a little while is the light with you.
Walk while ye have the light, lest darkness come upon you for
he that walketh in darkness knoweth not whither he goeth.
While ye have light, believe in the light, that ye may be the
children of light.’”

We find
the transfiguration scene in all the evangelists except St.
John. This is significant. Let us clarify the meaning of this
scene. What takes place? Jesus goes with three disciples
Peter, James and John — up a mountain: this means into
the inner sanctuary where one is initiated into higher worlds
and where one also speaks in occult language. Then it is
said: the master took his disciples up into a mountain
— it means that he went to that place where he
expounded the parable to them. The disciples were carried up
into a higher state of consciousness. They saw then that
which is not transitory but eternal. Moses and Elias appear
and Jesus himself with them. What does this mean? In occult
science the word Elias means the same as El — the goal,
the way. Moses is the spiritual scientific word for truth. By
the fact that Elias, Moses and Jesus appear you have the
fundamental Christian truth: I am the Way, the Truth and the
Life. Jesus himself says — this is a fundamental
Christian mystical truth — “I am the Way, the
Truth and the Life.”
(John, ch. 14, v. 6)

The
important thing is that here the eternal is shown as against
the temporal, and the disciples see into a world which lies
beyond this world. Afterwards they said to the master,
“All this should only have come to pass once Elias has
come again.” Thus they spoke to him as though
reincarnation was taken as a matter of course, as also in
many other passages in the gospels. John asked, “Art
thou Elias come again?” Then answered the master,
“Elias is indeed come again — John the Baptist is
Elias. But the people did not recognise him. Say it unto no
man until I come again.” Here we have the general,
religious, profound truth of reincarnation uttered in the
intimate conversation between the master and his disciples.
At the same time it is set down as a testament: “Say it
unto no man until I come again.” This coming again
refers to a much later time, the time when all men will
recognise Christ through their higher comprehension. When
this comes about then will He reappear to them.

Thus
time is being prepared through the theosophical world
conception. Christ will reappear in the world. The doctrine
of reincarnation and karma as a generally accepted idea was
to be laid aside until this time. At that time people should
know nothing of reincarnation and karma, so that they were
obliged to take the life between birth and death as something
of particular value and importance. Humanity had to pass
through all stages of life experience. Up to the time of
Christ, reincarnation was generally accepted. Life between
birth and death was only a passing episode. But then man had
to learn to take life on earth as something important. An
extreme form of this teaching was the dogma of eternal
punishment and eternal reward. This is an extreme form. What
mattered was that each human individuality, each
“God-man”, should pass through one incarnation in
which he knew nothing of reincarnation and karma and in which
he appreciated the vital importance of life between birth and
death.

If you
read theosophical books you will find that the time between
the two incarnations is fifteen to eighteen hundred years.
This is about the same length of time as between the birth of
Christ, and the present day. Those living then, appear again
today. Because of this they are able again to accept the new
teaching. Therefore, the theosophical outlook was really
prepared on Mount Tabor by Christ Jesus. If we look at world
history in broad lines, we should not think that we are
dealing either with truth or with error which we can censure.
It is not a question of absolute truth or error, but of what
is right for man at any given time. If I sat here with a
group of boys no more than ten years old, and set about
teaching them higher mathematics, I would be teaching them
truth and yet it would be folly. I must give a person what he
needs, at any given stage of his development. It is not right
for us today to say in retrospect, that the Christian
teaching contained errors. No. In order to master the
physical plane, one had to take this one life seriously.
Certainly, the priestly sages of Chaldea taught great
spiritual truths. They brought down a vast knowledge of the
spiritual world, but they used the most primitive tools, and
did not know how to use the forces of nature in everyday
life. The physical plane had first to be mastered. To do
this, man's whole life of feeling must be directed towards
it. Christianity had to prepare mankind to master the
physical world. This was decreed, it is the testament from
Mount Tabor. What lies behind this declaration is something
wonderful.

If one
penetrates deeper, one will find more and more. If we want to
understand religious documents which came down to us from
times which had true knowledge of spiritual life and not a
materialistic way of thinking, we must realise that the mode
of thought was so different, that if one spoke of man, one
spoke in a completely different way.

Now I
must tell you something which though easy to understand
intellectually, is difficult for the man of today to grasp
with his whole soul. The time when the gospels were written
was the dawn of Christianity. One used names then in a way
which I will now explain. One did not look to the outer
physical man, but one saw something higher, the spiritual,
shining through it. A name was not used as it is today, it
had a significance. Suppose someone was called James
(Jacobus). James really means water. Water is the spiritual
scientific term for the soul element. If I call somebody
James, I say that his soul shines through his body. With
this, I signify that he belongs to the watery element. If I
give the name James to an initiate, he is to me the symbol
for water (Hebrew — Jam). James is nothing but the
technical name for an initiate who especially governs the
force of water in its occult sense.

Thus
were the three disciples who were taken up to Mount Tabor
called by their initiate names: James means water, Peter
stands for earth, or rock (Hebrew — Jabascha), John
signifies air (Ruach). Thus, John means he who has attained
the higher self. This leads us deep into the secret
doctrines. Transport yourself back into the time when man
only possessed the lower principles — the third Root
Race, the Lemurian epoch. Mankind did not then breath air, he
breathed through gills. Lungs and breathing through lungs
developed later. This process coincided with the impregnation
by the higher self. Air is, according to the hermetic
principle, the lower which represents the higher — the
higher self. If I call somebody John (Johannes), then he is
one who has awakened his higher self, who governs the occult
forces of air. Jesus is the one who governs the occult forces
of fire (Nur). Thus you have in these four names, the
representatives of earth, water, air and fire. They are the
names of the four who ascended Mount Tabor.

Jam — James

Nur

Ruach

Jesus

Johannes

Jabascha —
Petrus

Think of
these four together on the Mount of Transfiguration. There
you have at the same time, the initiates who govern the four
elements: fire, water, air and earth. What happened? It was
made manifest spiritually that through the appearance of
Jesus, the whole power of the elements was renewed in such a
way that the life pulsing through the elements passed through
a new, important phase of its development. This is the
transfiguration seen occultly. If somebody goes through the
transfiguration in this manner, if he has within himself the
stages of water, earth and air, and even rises to the forces
of fire, then he is a reawakened one, someone who has gone
through the crucifixion. Thus, in the case of the other
evangelists, this scene is but a preparation for the deeper
initiation scene of the crucifixion itself. In the John
Gospel, everything is already prepared. The preparatory scene
does not appear, only the death on the Mount of Golgotha.
Jam, Nur, Ruach, Jabascha — INRI — this is the
meaning of the words on the cross.

One can
go deeper and deeper into the religious texts and never
finish learning. Sometimes when one hears an explanation like
this it sounds forced. But every step that leads you deeper
will furnish evidence that it is not forced. Superficial
explanations seek to avoid the “depths”
purposely. But there are depths in these writings. Those who
know something can always say to themselves: probably there
is much more in it, I have still much to learn. This is the
attitude of reverence that we can bring to religious
texts.

This
reverence is of the utmost importance, for it will become
strength in us drawn from the depths. There is one important
sentence that I can only touch on. In chapter 19, verse 33,we
find: “But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was
dead already they brake not his legs ... ” and in verse
36, “For these things were done, that the scripture
should be fulfilled, A bone of him shall not be
broken.” You know that this reminds one of a passage in
one of the books of Moses
(Exodus 12:46).
Rightly understood, it has a deep meaning. It is deeply symbolical,
but I can only touch on it.

If you
look around the world you will have to admit that man as he
is now incarnated in the flesh has no power over life, nor
over what stands, above life. He is only master of the
lifeless inorganic forces. Man cannot oblige a plant to grow,
or to grow faster. He would have to acquire occult power, to
do so. Far less is he able to master what is higher than life
forces. What he is able to control is the lifeless outer
world. There, he exerts his mastery in everyday work over the
materials with which nature provides him. He creates works of
art, pictures of the Almighty, but he cannot breathe life
into them. He can only copy life. He cannot awaken an
intimation of life in the lifeless, even in the most sublime
Christian works of art. This is so because man has enfolded
his astral and etheric forces in the solid, dense physical
body. Thus he came to have this relation to the outer
world — to be master only of the lifeless. The higher
forces which are not tied to the physical must be awakened,
and then man will again be able to master life. As it is, he
can only control physical forces, and not life itself.

This is
connected with the fact that the human body which was once
soft and pliable has now become more and more solid. If you
go back in evolution you will see that man has changed very
much. In Lemurian times he had no skeleton. This was formed
later. The bones were the last things to appear in the human
organism. He will have them until he has spiritualised
himself again, until he has awakened again his inner forces
and learned the lesson which he can only learn in this dense
body with its hard skeleton. Christ Jesus is that spirit
whose cosmic mission it was to be incarnated in just such a
body in order to show man the way out of this world into a
higher world. He is the leader and guide into the higher
world. That which has to find its way into the higher world
is symbolised by the solid human skeleton. As long as man had
not reached the stage of having a hard skeleton, he did not
need a Messiah. But for this present epoch he needs the
Messiah, the Redeemer.

Thus it
is evident that the forces in Jesus which are connected with
the higher world do not concern present day humanity. We can
express it by calling the skeleton the exterior; water, the
etheric body; blood, the astral body; and then the spirit.
*[First Epistle of John, ch. 5, v. 8,
(literally) “And there are three that bear witness: the
spirit and the water and the blood.”] Therefore blood
and water can flow from the body of Christ. These are of no
import for the present cycle of human development. On the
other hand, that which supports the whole, which leads man
upwards to the throne of the Eternal, what he needs in order
to learn the lesson, that must be kept uninjured. This is the
skeleton, the symbol for the lifeless in nature. Through this
skeleton, Christ is connected with the present cycle of man's
development. This is what must be kept intact until such time
as man shall have reached higher stages. We can follow this
back to the corresponding passages in the Books of Moses. But
this can be done some other time.

Today I
wanted to add something which will have shown you that the
John Gospel is inexhaustible, and how full it is of strength
and life. As we take it in and absorb it, it gives us
strength and life. This is why this gospel is the leading
scripture for those who wish to penetrate deeper and deeper
into theosophical Christianity. If theosophy is to work for
Christianity it is from this, above all, that it must start.
But clearly, if I were to explain the John Gospel in its
entirety to you, I should have to take the whole winter. I
should have to take it sentence by sentence and then you
would see how deep are the words ascribed to John, i.e. to
him whose very name indicates that he is a herald of the
higher self. He is the representative of air, and master of
the higher forces, who, from the perception of the higher
self, wrote his Gospel according to St. John.

It would
be futile and in vain, to attempt to fathom, or criticise
this gospel with the powers of the ordinary intellect. In our
time the intellect has achieved great things, but the John
Gospel is not written for the intellect. Only he who has
overcome the intellect and is able to lead it to the heights
of spirit power as John did, can understand his gospel.
Theosophy would be quite wrong to undertake an intellectual
critique of this John Gospel. Instead, it should immerse
itself in it, in order to understand it. Then we should see
that a new spirit of Christianity — not only the spirit
of the past, but a future Christianity, can proceed from the
John Gospel. We will become aware of the deep truth of one of
the most beautiful and profound sayings of Christ. Out of his
mouth we are told that Christianity is not something that has
merely lived in the past, but that the same power still lives
today. True it is what Christ said: I am with you always,
even unto the end of time.